The 5 Best Songs Of The Week

Listen to "Quick!" and do it quickly. Tasha calls her latest You Are Spring! single "a euphoric anthem for freedom, aliveness, play, connection, and lineage." She wrote it while reflecting on how summer days get her thinking about summers past, which sounds like the conditions necessary for a breezy, wistful, easygoing summer jam. But "Quick!" is an overwhelming song inspired by an overwhelming continuum of memories. The music is raw and grandiose, and Tasha's vocals match its splendor. The result is a regal procession through the backroads of her mind that, if it catches you in the right state of mind, might carry straight on into the deep recesses of your own heart and mind. —Chris

Birds are not assholes. They are simply creatures living their lives. They don't especially care about you, and that's just how it is. But when you've had a long, sleepless night and you hear the fist chirps of birdsong as the sun breaks the horizon, you might find yourself irrationally angry. Stupid asshole birds! Don't they know that they're laughing at your existential restless dread?

"Otherside," the closing track from veteran singer-songwriter Beth Orton's upcoming album The Ground Above, starts out with that kind of desperate insomniac logic. But it builds and expands, lyrically and musically. Orton leans hard into her rasp as her band of jazz-adjacent aces swells toward syncopated, symphonic folk-rock epiphany. She sings about chasing her own sleep-deprived thoughts but finds herself meditating on the beauty of survival instead — the kind of epiphany that you might find when you stop being mad at the birds and get lost just watching them fly. —Tom

I had to listen to “Rituals” a few times before I realized something sinister might be lurking beneath the surface. The title is an obvious clue (“Killin’ these hoes, they think I do rituals,” Rico Nasty raps) but it’s easy to get distracted by her maniacally playful delivery. Kenneth Blume, formerly known as Kenny Beats, gives the track a menacing backdrop that feels ripped from the trailer of an A24 horror movie. The melody is ominous, punctuated by fat bursts of air that sound like a possessed Air Zooka anchoring the beat. There’s shattered glass, foreboding bell clangs, and an atmosphere that steadily creeps under your skin. Nasty recently referenced the discourse around people overlooking, possibly forgetting, her rapping ability. It’s true: I love a Rico Nasty rap. But forgetting how good Nasty and Blume are together is like forgetting how good a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is. Some combinations are classics for a reason. —Margaret

"Powerless" is Emma Ruth Rundle's reaction to the seemingly endless reasons for despair that rain down all around us these days, "an onslaught of news and headlines which are endlessly demoralizing and dehumanizing." But if it arose from feeling like there's nothing Rundle or any of us can do to stem the tide, it doesn't sound like it's coming from a place of weakness. Across these five minutes, Rundle seems to be forging connections, gathering strength, summoning elemental forces. It's a song about daring to imagine a better world, willing it into existence. If that process is anything like "Powerless," it's going to rock. —Chris

A devastating, five-minute-and-a-half-long alt-country dirge? The spirit of Songs: Ohia lives on. I can't help but think of "Farewell Transmission" when listening to Credit Electric's "We'll Laugh About It Later," whose twangy guitars, somber pedal steel, and doleful saxophone create a beautiful atmosphere of utmost tragedy as Ryan LoPilato mumbles about grief, pain, goodbyes, and feelings that "as a man I shouldn't talk about." It feels unfathomably heavy; like with "Farewell Transmission," I feel buried by it. While that may not sound particularly appealing, sometimes you just want a song to absolutely smother you. —Danielle